System Builder Marathon: Mid-Cost System

Game Benchmarks - Real-Time Strategy

Supreme Commander is known to like more CPU cores, and the Q6700 does an excellent job keeping the title happy. This is a real-time strategy game, not a 'twitch' first person shooter, and consequently the 35 fps we see at 1920x1200 with 4xAA is very, very playable.

Of course, at all other resolutions we get even higher frame rates, so a Q6700 with an 8800 GTX can effectively handle Supreme Commander. Let's see how the mid-range system fares with another tough RTS, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos.

This game appears even tougher than Supreme Commander, but the mid-range system still saunters through the benchmark stably and at a very playable frame rate.

After all of these benchmarks, the only title that has truly challenged the mid-range system appears to be Crysis. Once again, we'll lament our lack of dual-8800 GTs in SLI mode, but the single 8800 GTX has performed admirably in everything else.

  • crites
    Why wouldn't you put 1066MHz (PC2-8500) memory on this machine?
    Reply
  • OS43
    I assume they are using Cas 4 memory, which you are not going to find in this price range at PC2-8500.
    Reply
  • AngryClown
    This build is identical to my current rig, except I chose an 8800GT, and the Q6600 oc'd to 2.88. It plows through AVCHD editing, and Oblivion.

    I spent weeks researching the best price points. Good job guys.
    Reply